Erik Jones, former Congressional investigator, talks issues in bid for 13th District

Alex B. Heeb, aheeb@civitasmedia.com

Published
9:52 am CDT, Friday, July 28, 2017

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Erik Jones, former Congressional investigator, talks issues in bid for 13th District

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EDWARDSVILLE – Earlier this week, a former assistant attorney general and Congressional investigator, Erik Jones, announced his candidacy for the 13th Congressional District.

Jones, 37, joins three Democrats seeking their party’s nomination, which will ultimately pit one of them against incumbent Republican Congressman Rodney Davis during the 2018 elections.

Jones has taken aim at Davis as he begins his campaign, saying Davis is overly involved with special interests.

“I’m in this race is because of what I’ve seen from Rodney Davis and other politicians,” he said. “I’ve seen lip service but I haven’t seen people doing something about the problems that we are facing… I think we need to be sending bulldogs, not backslappers, to Congress to confront our challenges.”

Originally from Centralia, Jones now lives in Edwardsville, where until recently he worked as an attorney in private practice helping companies that were affected by data breaches. He now plans to campaign full-time for Congress.

“I feel very passionate about this, and I think that to do this properly you’ve got to be all in on this, which is what I’m going to do,” he said.

Most of Jones’ career has been spent in public service. In 2007, he began working for the U.S. Senate as an investigative counsel, and eventually was appointed as the Senate’s Chief Investigative Counsel.

In that role, Jones says he was a fierce advocate for common man, and was always on the lookout for corruption and abuse – whether the source was private industry, or government.

“A good example of that is, as an investigative counsel I investigated the government when victims of Hurricane Katrina were being put back in harm’s way because of these trailers that were being sent down to them,” Jones said. “And they were complaining about getting sick. I heard those concerns and then opened up an investigation and found out that FEMA knew it was a problem, knew there were high levels of formaldehyde, which made these trailers incredibly dangerous, and did nothing about it.”

After leaving the role in 2013, Jones went to work as an assistant attorney general for the state of Illinois, where he became director of their policy bureau, meaning he took a significant role in suggesting laws to the legislature to stop abuses. The job, he said, enabled him to do what he loves – fight for the underdog.

“I went after the conduct that was hurting everyday people,” Jones said. “I took on big banks that were forcing Illinois workers to swallow ridiculous fees for simply accessing their pay. And by taking the fight, Illinois now has one of the strongest laws in the country against those sorts of abusive practices.”

On the issues, Jones largely lines up with the Democratic platform. He is pro-choice and supports unions. While supporting limited gun control, Jones says he believes gun rights are fundamental.

“My father-in-law is a hunter, my brother-in-law is in law enforcement, so I think it is important that we protect the rights of responsible gun owners,” Jones said. “At the same time, we need to make sure we are keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people, like terrorists or like criminals, or domestic abusers.”

On healthcare, Jones, has “guiding principals” that must be met before he would support any measure.

“We need to have a healthcare system that is affordable, that allows people to get access to health insurance and pay a reasonable fee for it, with reasonable costs, and when somebody gets sick, they don’t have to go bankrupt to get the care they need,” he said. “Any time I am looking at any proposal, or any idea, that’s what I’ll be thinking about.”

Jones is opposed to the healthcare bill being currently being pushed by Congressional Republicans, saying it smacks of special interests.

Jones said on education, one of his chief concerns was student loans, and the rollback of related consumer protections.

“It can be very challenging to pay that debt off,” he said. “It can be very confusing dealing with how to it, and there are companies taking advantage of former students who are trying to pay down their debt. And there are protections in place that protect students in these situations. Well, they just rolled those protections back. If I’m in Washington, I’ll tell you what, I’m going to fight to make sure those protections are there for people.”

Jones said he is concerned that policymakers have not done enough for the area’s economy, and would fight for an economy “that is working for every zip code, and working in the 13th district.”

Lack of internet access, Jones said, is a major problem in the district.

“I’ve looked at these numbers in the 13th district, there are hundreds of thousands, maybe up to 200,000 people who don’t have access to broadband internet,” he said. “And that should be something we should be talking about every day and fighting to make sure that happens. For an economy that is headed the way that it is headed, it’s basically not even having access to the on-ramp. That’s a problem.”

Jones said programs are needed like the 1930s era ones that helped electrify rural America, after private enterprises failed to do so.

“Internet is the electricity of our generation, and we’ve got to make sure that internet is everywhere,” he said. “That’s just a basic bottom line thing, because if we don’t even get that done, you’re not going to be able to bring jobs to rural areas if you can’t even get on the internet. How are you going to start a small business?”

If elected, Jones said he would always look out for the interests of the voters.

“What I think we need in Washington right now are members of Congress who are there to fight for people on a regular basis,” he said. “At a base level, I think that is the most important thing, and then once we get that fixed we can really start solving a lot of our challenges.”